Waiting

I usually use this blog to post seeds of wisdom that God has placed in my life...but I'm feeling fresh out of those today.  So instead, since no one reads this blog, and since it's has about 12 page views a month, 90% of which are for Russia, I'm going to ramble on about my life for my lovely fans in Russia.

I'm a senior in college.  I graduate this spring.  That's awesome, because I've hated college (still do-even though everyone told me I'd love it and it'd be the best years of my life-but that's for another day), but...what happens next?  I guess that's the question we hit at so many different points in our life.  Many times, there seems like there is a clear "next path" but there are many times where that isn't the case.  For those of us not interested in grad school, at least at this point of our lives, my fellow graduating class of 2013 is in the same boat as I am.  Many have gone to school, finished a degree program, and know exactly what field they want a job in after college.  I've done A and B...but C doesn't follow.  I'm student teaching this semester, and it's taught me something pretty significant:  I can do something where I like each of the individual pieces of the overall job, but when they are all put together, I hate it.  I dread going to school.  I've been counting down the weeks until I'm done since I started.  "That doesn't make any sense, because you just said that you like the individual pieces of the job," you say.  Exactly.  How can I like the individual pieces but not the whole picture? I have discovered one factor it comes down to:

GOD.

Yep.  That's it.  I can't put my finger on any other reason why I don't want to be a music teacher.  The par that makes no sense to me is I've wanted to be a music teacher since I was 12.  I clearly remember deciding as a sixth or seventh grader that I wanted to spend the rest of my life playing with instruments and teaching other people how to play them.  I went to college for just that-and God said NO WAY JOSE.  So I transferred, changed my major...and then God opened up the door for this brand new degree program at my school:  vocal music education.  So it's not exactly what I had wanted, but I can't see me doing either after college (even though I'm not endorsed to teach instrumental music, so in all reality, it's a moot point).  But what I am mostly confused about it why God led me back to music to tell me no again now.  I know...God's providence is never something that makes sense in advance.  I'll look back years from now, or in heaven, and be grateful that God led me where He did.  But it's so frustrating facing the unknown.  I have 7 little weeks left and then I have a part time job only unless something else comes up.  I've been applying like crazy around the country since there are all of 3 jobs open within a three hour radius from home.  I'm praying that God leads me to the right job.  I'm praying that He leads my family to the place where we are supposed to be after we graduate in May.  Truth of the matter is, I know for a fact He will.  But I'm incredibly impatient.  I hate seasons of waiting, but I know they are what God uses to draw us back closer to Him.  In the busyness of this season of life, I've wandered away from spending as much time with God as I ought to.  I'm grateful for His gift.  I do a darn poor job of reflecting that...and that's gotta change.

One other thing I've been pondering about in the last day or so...dreams.  What are my dreams, what are my goals?  For the past few years, I've been content to say that I have no idea what to do and that God has a plan and I'm simply trusting that He'll lead me to a place where I am ultimately happy and best working for Him.  Yet the world tells me I should have a dream after college, and quite honestly my main dreams are this:  To enjoy life with my husband.  To find some sort of job that I feel called to, at least for now, and that I enjoy walking in the door in the morning at least 60% of the time.  To be content in the fact that I am a daughter of God, I am only beginning to discover what He has in mind for our lives, and to know that no matter what happens on this Earth, it will all be okay on the day where I am fully redeemed and get to live with Him and party it up for all of eternity.  And I hope it includes a whole lot of singing-especially by children.  There is nothing like the joy and excitement of children, and that is one thing I am definitely amazed by (and many days overwhelmed by) every day as I teach this semester.

So if you've actually managed to read this whole post, I guess here are the main points of learning:
1) I hate waiting.
2) God says yes, then no, then yes, then no to what seem like the logical path to me.  I don't understand.  But God's ways are greater than mine.  For now, I'm going to hold on to that and trust that there has been a reason for all of this yes then no then yes then no to the path that I thought He was leading me on.
3) It's okay to wait for God to place the dreams in your heart that are His desires for your life.  I don't know what my dreams are right now, except I think they involve youth ministry.  God does...and I'm trying to remain content in that and not feel like there is something wrong with me because I have no idea what the next step is from here.
4) The future is a big question mark-but, in many ways, it always is, isn't it?

Peace, my Russian friends.  May God bring hope and joy in to your life and speak to you in some small way this week as we begin to celebrate Holy Week tonight.  Tonight's breaking of the bread is the beginning of the journey to the cross...and the beginning to our life with Him that starts now and simply gets better and more full as we prepare to meet Him.  Dream of the future where we don't have to worry about jobs or money or life on Earth-dream of a future where all we do is worship and bask in love and glory that are too great for even our imaginations right now.

Some other things to check out if you want:
http://agirlikeme.com/  One of my favorite blogs.  I read it pretty regularly.  Awesome, raw truth on life.
https://soundcloud.com/mattkirkmusic/sets/shabach-a-hymn-collection  I'm obsessed with this music today.

Why Pray?

It's been awhile since I've posted again...this semester is just super busy.  Looking forward to being done with college.

This probably isn't going to be a long post, but I watched Mike Donehey's (lead singer of Tenth Avenue North) video journal tonight on prayer.  If you've never watched one of his videos, I'd highly recommend it.  Mike talked about how his focus in prayer shifted from praying as a means to an end to prayer as an end in itself.  The question that keeps coming to mind tonight after watching this is why do I pray?  I have to say, the answer I keep giving isn't good enough.  I want to pray to be changed.  I want to pray to spend quality time with God.  I want to pray to be with God and in His presence.  Yet I find myself praying for a multitude of other reasons.  How do I make this shift?

Brain feeling drained from school so this is all I've got for tonight, but I'll leave all of my loyal followers (ha!) with one question:  Why do you pray?

The Dove in the Winter

Today, I took a walk.

Yep.  Me.  Those of you in cyberspace who know me know that this is not a usual behavior for me-especially not in the daytime.  But, according to the banks and things around town, it's about 70 degrees.  

I'm sitting here on my front porch on January 5th in Nebraska.  70 degrees.  

This unseasonably warm day in the midst of the dreary post-holiday week is quite a blessing.  It's like God is coming out from behind the clouds and yelling "there's still hope."  

At least, that's what he showed me today.

So as I said, today, I took a walk.  It was no ordinary walk, that's for sure.  Usually when I walk it's because I'm seeking God, or praising His creation.  I should do it more.  But today, I just wanted to be outside.  I decided to go to a park here in town that is the setting for some of my darkest memories and some of my best memories, as well.  As I walked around the park, I began to remember cross country workouts there, I began to remember all the crazy things my teammates and I used to do there.  It was fun to reminisce about all the great times we had.  But as I started walking, I quickly forgot about all those things.  I heard the laughter of little kids playing on the playground with their moms.  I saw dog owners over in the dog park happily throwing frisbees to their happy dogs.  I saw a few women out for a walk together who all brightly said "hi!" to me as they passed.  I saw a man in a car wave an oncoming driver to turn at the intersection before him and I saw the other drive wave them on in return.  This unseasonable day was causing some unseasonable behavior.  In the park, though, I started to dream about the future-a prospect that has started to scare me a whole lot lately.  After a pretty big mess in my life my senior year of high school and beginning of freshman year of college when I had a crisis over having no idea whatsoever where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, I finally made peace with that and since then have been pretty content to let God guide my decisions and give Him my future.  Even as I've changed my major a whole bunch of times and transferred colleges, I've felt at peace knowing that even as my major alters slightly again from His guidance as I'm understanding it, and I know He has a plan for me that He has not yet revealed to me.  And I'm okay with that-for the most part.  Yet as I was walking around the park, I was seeing glimpses of things my future could contain that I've never really taken the time to think about.  As a woman here in America, I've been taught my whole life that life is focused on getting an education and going to college and networking and finding a career and in that we are fulfilled.  Yet I know better.  The Bible teaches something else entirely about fulfillment, first of all.  It is first found in Him, and secondly, as a woman, is found within the life of a family.  You see, I spent a good portion of last semester having my ideas about family and what it means to be a woman and what the Bible says shaken up and challenged quite a bit.  On one hand, I was taking a class called Marriage and the Family, which teaches all about what families look like in our society and what thinks society says are good and right.  I found many of these ideas in radical opposition to what the Bible says, and it was soon easy to see why the divorce rate in America is at around 50%.  However, I was also taking a Women in the Bible course about feminist theology.  This whole class discussed how the Bible was written from a very patriarchal standpoint and how women are constantly subjugated in the Bible.  While some of the points made were definitely interesting, I would not say I was in agreement with many of the teachings of this class, either.  I ended up writing my final paper for that class on the Household codes-texts such as the one found in Ephesians 5-that tells wives to submit to your husbands, as these have been controversial texts in the church that have been used to justify everything from negative comments towards women to domestic violence.  However, I found some really interesting articles on how these texts were actually quite liberating and freeing for their time, and starting seeing how the roles the Bible presents are not designed to be subjugating but freeing.  The point being-I really started to think about what a family looks like and what it means to be a woman, according to the Bible, and things like that.  Recently, I've been reading through a sermon series that looks at the Song of Songs, and in the last one I read, it discussed how this pastor viewed that a man providing for the family and a woman staying home to raise the children were ideal roles.  He made some really interesting points, and I'm not sure I've really figured out how I felt about this either, but as I saw these kids playing with their moms in the park today, it reminded me of that sermon, and I started to think about my own life in the future, and for the first time, started to think about how I might feel about someday staying home and raising kids.  To be honest with you, I hate college.  I know many people have great times in college and even much later in life tell stories of how great college was and still keep in touch with some of those friends-but that isn't and won't be me.  Honestly, I have exactly one friend that goes to my college.  I spend the least amount of time there possible because I truly dislike it.  And it's not just my specific college (although that isn't helping), it's just college in general that I don't like.  So it's been a rough past year or so, and I've been counting down the semesters until I'm done.  As that number is getting increasingly smaller though, the peace I have made with what the future hold is getting a little less peaceful.  I have no clue what life post-college looks like for me.  Professors are talking about grad school entrance requirements, people ask me what my major is all the time and then ask me what I hope to do with that, and sometimes I make up an answer of something that seems fun that day, but I can never actually picture myself doing any of that for very long at all.  This is something I've talked with many of my older friends about.  You get to this point in college and then realize that the moment where you are actually going to have to find a real job is approaching quite rapidly.  And it's scary.  It's daunting.  Because guess what?  I didn't know what I wanted to do going into college, so I pursued something I enjoyed.  And guess what?  I still have no clue what career seems interesting out of my degrees.  So the idea of the future is a little stressful, but I'm trying to leave it in God's hands.  Today, as I was walking, God was showing me some alternate ideas for the future that I had never considered-one of them being a stay at home mother and raising a family.  It's a crazy thought-but it was super nice to realize that all of the things I have dreamed up and that don't seem to be quite right aren't all of the options out there.  God still has a plan for my life.  God is still on the throne.  And His plan will be the one that ends up bearing the most fruit in my life, regardless of how He has to drag me to get me to see it.  Granted:  I still have no clue what it is.  But God showed me today that He still has a plan for me.  

So after I looped around the park, with all of these crazy thoughts about the future running through my head, I took a loop around what my high school cross country team used to affectionately call the "butt crack."  If you'd see an aerial view of this neighborhood, it'd make perfect sense to you.  Anyway, as I was walking down these streets, I started to reminisce about all the fun times my high school cross country team had.  I remembered the "Tour of Homes" route that ran through these streets (because between us we knew the majority of the people that lived in these homes), I remembered us fussing over whether or not the butt crack was a short cut and then whether our mileage was actually accurate for the day and then of course taking this short cut anyway, I remembered time trials we ran every year that ran right by these streets, I remembered runs that were casual and conversation-filled, and I remembered runs where we were pushing the pace and truly training for the season ahead.  I saw houses of two of my good friends from high school cross country, and I remembered sleep overs and Saturday morning runs from these houses and one snowy, winter morning where three of us met and decided to do a long run that, after we finished, weary and exhausted, someone later clocked and discovered we had run almost eight miles in almost blizzard like conditions that morning (no wonder we were so tired).  As I found myself reminiscing this afternoon, I found myself walking down the street with a smile on my face.   You see, I've been having kind of a rough time lately.  I had a crazy semester last semester (not really in good ways), and I've been just having a rough time in life.  Things aren't that bad.  But things aren't that great either.  As I said, I really dislike college.  I don't have very many friends here.  I spend a lot of time by myself, usually brooding over the circumstances I am in or the daunting to-do list or homework pile ahead of me.  It's not been the most pleasant way to spend my time.  So it's been rare to find me smiling for no real good reason.  It was kind of nice today to just reminisce about good memories from the past.  But as I start thinking about how these times are over and the situation I am in currently isn't this pleasant, God reminded me of the park.  Of His promises to bring me hope and a future and His plan for me that is so much better than anything I can dream up on my own.  

You see, I've had good times in the past.  I have good times waiting for me in the future.  And while right now, it's a struggle to find even a little good in every day, I know that this is only now.  I know that this situation is not a permanent one.  I know that God has a purpose for this time right here, even though I truly don't see it at all.  I know that things will be better and more enjoyable; as they once were, they one day will be.  I don't understand why life right now seems so challenging to me, but I know that these times won't last.  God uses an unseasonable day like this in the middle of the winter to remind us of the warmth and joy and beauty we see in the fall and remind us that it is coming again, and he'll make it all new in the spring.  As I walked today, I remembered the story of Noah and the ark I just read the other day from the One Year Bible plan I started a few days ago.  The world had been good.  Granted, people had gone astray from Him.  Things weren't as good as they once were.  But the world was still made by God.  And then God swept it all away in a flood.  But then He made it new again, and made a covenant with Noah and humans and animals to say that never again would He destroy the Earth.  He gave us a rainbow as a sign of that promise.  Life was crazy for Noah-but I'm sure that time in the ark was long and trying.  Winter is that way for many humans, too.  Humans, in a general sense, love the sun and the summer, but the winter is long and trying.  Over the winter, humans see the fun that was before the winter, and then at the first sign of spring (which usually is not in January...), they rejoice because they see hope that those times are coming back.  I guess right now, in my life, is this time of winter.  It's my time on the ark.  As things are challenging now, I have to keep remembering that there are good things that have happened in my life, and even continue to happen now as I wait out this time on the ark.  And today was the dove.  The promise that these times are coming to an end.  A sign of hope that the waters will recede and the world around me will once more be beautiful.  Granted, until I finally come home, the ground will still be rocky and times will still be rough.  But there will be times that in general are better than this-and I thank God for that promise and that reminder of that promise today.  In the meantime, I pray that God helps me to see the good things that surround me every day.  Even in the midst of winter, we have the gift of snow.  In the midst of the ark, Noah still had his family and his friends surrounding him.  And I still have God's gifts surrounding me too.  I pray that I am able to see them, for I know my winter is not over yet.  

"The lamp unto my feet only moves when I take a step"

It has been forever since I have blogged on this blog.  I was kind of upset at myself when I saw my last post was from early October.  I write more often than this, I just usually don't share it on here.  So a couple of thoughts for tonight:

1)  One of the main reasons I haven't blogged on here very often is that this blog's original purpose was to share bits of God's wisdom that I feel like He has passed on to me.  This summer, I couldn't keep up with all the things I was feeling Him show me.  This fall, well, this fall I've been too busy to listen to Him as well.  I'm realizing tonight how many things have become idols, of sorts, for me this semester, and how this priority needs fixed before spring semester starts.  I'm making it a public goal, right here, right now-I know without God's help there is no way I can reshift my life priorities to the things that really matter.

2)  I'm weary.  It's been a rough semester.  I hope that I will make some time after I get through one last religion essay before freedom to sift through what this semester has been for me, and I hope that I share some of it here with you (whoever exactly you are).  I am realizing how much I feel connected with someone when they are transparent with me and show me the things they are going through, but I struggle to be transparent with others.

3)  I was talking with a friend of mine a few minutes ago over texting (terrible way to communicate, I'm aware...but sometimes it's what we have) and we were discussing the brokenness we are currently feeling.  I wrote to her something along the lines of "I'm struggling with the realization that the areas of my life that have always been 'perfect' aren't anymore.  The things that I always felt assuredly would be fine-they no longer are.  I feel like God has a lesson in this for me."  The verse that's now popping into my mind is 1 Corinthians 10:12 "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!"  Apparently I've been standing a little too firm in these areas of my life.  God's knocking me off my feet a little bit-and His discipline is well placed.  It's a hard thing to realize that there are no assurances in this life except for God.  Everything else changes; the things that were always constants in our life can get swept away in a moment.  Regardless of what happens here, His love is always greater.  He has a greater purpose.  I just "wish I could see just three steps in front of me, but the lamp unto my feet only moves when I take a step," as my favorite song says.  I just hope that I listen to His guidance and keep stepping in the direction He has laid out for me.

4)  I've been struggling with finding true, fulfilling relationships in my life.  Relationships=friendships.  I'm really struggling to find who the true friends are in my life.  It's been a tough realization.  I think God is showing me that I need to be dependent on Him first and people second, but it's sure not easy to try to focus on putting Him first when I'm hurting.  I've been pretty upset by the lack of true friendships that I feel that I have in this world.  This week, I have realized how much I dislike Facebook.  I've been completely addicted for almost 7 years now.  Ridiculous, when I look at that.  I shut down my account this week for finals-and no one noticed.  After I brushed myself off from that little blow, I realized that the only people I use it to communicate with are people I talk to otherwise anyway.  So why do I have it?  I might be taking a little longer sabbatical than I was originally planning, because honestly, I have so many better things I could be doing with my time than Facebook.

4)  I hope that your semesters have gone much better than mine!  I know that at the end of the day, my grades, my friendships or lack their of, the sins I have committed-all of that just doesn't matter.  God loves me  even if I fail Theory.  God loves me even when I do some really stupid stuff.  God still loves me even if it sure seems like the people around me don't.  And God still loves me when I work so hard to win approval in this world that I don't put nearly as much time into seeking Him as I should be.

 "And I pray that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Eph 3 17b-19

"But the beauty of grace is that it makes life unfair"

Monday nights have somehow become Bible study night for me.  I was really missing having that, and God answered prayer in a big way when these two came into my life.  They both have qualities that I was looking for-unspoken requests, if you will.  Love it.

Anyway, for one of my Bible studies, we are studying the book of Philippians.  The leader has a pretty formatted way to do this, but I really like the structure and formality of it.  I feel like I am going to pick up things in the text I've never seen before.  However...this requires some preparation for each week.  This past week completely got away from me, and, well, I somehow never got around to doing the questions until about 10 minutes before we started tonight.  I've been meaning to all week and was really looking forward to sitting down and digging into these verses.  I felt awful about not having it done, and while it doesn't seem like a big deal...it kind of is.  As I was driving towards school tonight, I was making up all sorts of excuses in my head of why I didn't have it done, and the predominant ones were along the lines of "Well, it isn't for a grade and my homework is..." and "I've been busy" and "School work kind of came first."  Granted, it isn't that big of a deal, and my leader wasn't upset or anything...but as I was creating these excuses, I feel like God was whispering replies right back to me tonight.  My train of thought was somewhere along the lines of "It isn't for a grade, therefore it doesn't affect my GPA, and doesn't affect my future..."  But wait.  God stopped me right there.   Where did I get so turned around in life that college GPA comes before my relationship with God?  That has a significantly larger impact on my future than my GPA EVER will...and thank God for that, with how this semester is going!  I am completely turned around in life...but the beauty of God is He can turn us back around.  I have gotten away from putting my relationship with God first, and that saddens me and disappoints me greatly, because nothing is more important than that.  Granted, I don't have to do anything to earn my salvation, but I'm not reflecting the love my Creator shows me if I don't spend time developing my relationship with Him.  It's time to get back to Him, to run back to His arms.  Keep me accountable, friends...I cannot do this on my own.  It's easy when we don't hear His voice clearly to drift away from the things that will allow us to maintain a close relationship with Him.  So this blog post is a reminder to myself in the future that GOD is the center of my life-am I treating Him as such?


BTW...tonight's title is from Relient K's "Be My Escape."  Funny part is, as I was just typing in the title box trying to create a post, that's what came out.  Oddly appropriate lyrics for where I'm at right now.  Thanks God. :)
 
I gotta get outta here
I’m stuck inside this rut that I fell into by mistake
I gotta get outta here
And I’m begging You, I’m begging You, I’m begging You to be my escape.

I’m giving up on doing this alone now
Cause I’ve failed and I’m ready to be shown how
He’s told me the way and I’m trying to get there
And this life sentence that I’m serving
I admit that I’m every bit deserving
But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair


This is just a sampling of the lyrics-check out the full lyrics here.